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sent to Mr Chambers. Herald—March 7 '88
Mr. Browning1 has just been here & says you wish something more specific &
defined in my relations and pay2—If you want the little pieces3 continued, I would
like to continue them for $40 a month, & will furnish you with say ten pieces a
month—of the character and length as hitherto—this bargain to commence with the
current month—
Walt Whitman
Proposal accepted & letter from H March 8
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Correspondent:
Julius Chambers (1850–1920)
was an American author, investigative journalist, and travel writer. After
working as a reporter for the New York Tribune, he became
the editor of the New York Herald and, later, the New York World.
Notes
- 1. C. H. Browning worked in the
Philadelphia office of the New York Herald, and he later
worked in the same capacity for the New York World.
Whitman described Browning as "a fine, dark-browed, vital, affectionate sort of
a man—a newspaper man made of the real stuff" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, August 12, 1888). Browning convinced Whitman to write "A Voice from the Death," a poem on the Johnstown flood that was
printed in the World on June 7, 1889. [back]
- 2. On March 2 Walt Whitman
had sent a bill to the New York Herald for $100 for the pieces printed in
January and February (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection
of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). And see the 15 March 1888 letter to Richard
Maurice Bucke. [back]
- 3. In late 1887, James Gordon Bennett,
Jr., editor of the New York Herald, invited Whitman to
contribute a series of poems and prose pieces for the paper. From December 1887
through August 1888, 33 of Whitman's poems appeared. [back]